Learning journey

Thus far, as I continue to research, I’m grateful and excited by invitations from (this will be updated as changes happen):

· Flourish and Fly, Amsterdam THE NETHERLANDS- https://flourishandfly.nl/

· Spring Academy, Corfu GREECE- https://springacademy.gr/en/home

· FHU Free Home University, Berlin GERMANY- https://www.fhu.art/

· A School called HOME, Östervåla, SWEDEN- https://aschoolcalledhome.org/about/

· Ravn nature veiledning (nature guide) https://www.naturveiledern.no/home

· Rubik Kids, Bucharest, ROMANIA- https://www.facebook.com/rubikagileschool/

· Learnity, Bucharest, ROMANIA-https://learnity-ro.translate.goog/?_x_tr_sl=ro&_x_tr_tl=en&_x_tr_hl=en&_x_tr_pto=sc

· Intergenerational learning community/village, run by founders of Alternative University https://ecoversities.org/ecoversity/universitatea-alternativa/ROMANIA-

· JAPAN https://antaiji.org/en/history/—

· KOREA- an ecovillage and small school

Singing with distress

This project is supported by the NSW Government through Create NSW.

Thus far, I have invitations to share music performances at:

· Skronk Fest, New River Studios on 13th August in London UK https://www.facebook.com/events/525992069116429

· "Corcelles Resound Festival", KVO 3rd édition on 17th September in Corcelles-Neuchatel, Switzerland https://o-kvo.ch/

· venue and date TBC with label Thanatosis https://thanatosis.org/ in Stockholm, Sweden

· Polytechno on 30th August with Niki Kokkoli https://www.cafeoto.co.uk/artists/niki-kokkoli/ in Corfu, Greece

· Featured performance at Skronk, New River Studios on 20th September in London, UK

· Supporting Laura Loriga https://www.facebook.com/Mimesofwine/ 22nd September in London, UK

· Banjul, on 2nd October in Seoul, South Korea

· Mudaeryuk on 6th October in Hongdea, Seoul South Korea

· Cafe JINAERI 429-1, on 8th October in ChunCheon, South Korea

· Kunsthaus Mani, on 9th October in Ganghwa-island, South Korea

· Nonilda, on 15th October, in Jeju Island, South Korea

· Yoittangpippi, on 16th October, in Jeju Island, South Korea

· TBC venue and dates with Deterra (http://www.deterra8.com/about/) in Japan

· TBC with pianist Mr.Tori Kudo (https://torikudo.bandcamp.com/album/last-piano-improvisation-vol) in Shikoku, Japan.

· Festival at 酒遊館, on 30 October performing with Joji Sawada, Marron aka dubmarronics in Shiga, Japan.

· Yamanekoken Ogose, on 13th November with Mr.Naoto Yamagashi and TBC in Ogose-cho, Iruma-gun, Saitama Prefecture, Japan.

A little context…

I have recently been selected by Australasian Democratic Education Committee to attend the Summerhill Festival of Childhood, in Suffolk UK August 5-10th. Summerhill is the oldest democratic school in the Western world. The festival is an international conference bringing together people who care about child rights and change. ADEC’s sponsorship opened the dream to travel the UK, EU, Japan and South Korea and learn first-hand from these alternative learning communities, so that I can bring these learnings back to Australia.

Before ADEC, I stepped in as an active co-creator in a community emerging from Re-imagining Education conferences (‘21 & 22). We explore HOW to reframe and sustain learning environments that honour diverse knowledge ecologies and cosmologies in our rapidly changing world. I am committed, engaged, and filled with inspiration from this movement. I seek to meet re-imagineers in their co-created places of learning and unlearning. Yes, I am being impacted online. Meeting in flesh will be life changing, potentially not only for me.

From song to sound of place.

The most significant experience of unlearning has been the change in how and why I sing. Singing has been perhaps the strongest part of my identity since a very young age. I now live, listen and sing by a waterfall on Gundungurra land (Wentworth Falls, NSW, Australia). My practice is a spiritual practice informed by the teachings of Sufism, Theravada Buddhism, Soto Zena and Aboriginal Spirituality. Travelling abroad in 2016 led me to study the traditional art form Pansori with Master Bae Il Dong. Pansori singers practise at the foot of waterfalls. Korean culture brought me back into a deep relationship with my country and I am forever thankful for this arrival. Now I get to understand what ‘Han’ is associated with Pansori; “often described as an internalised feeling of deep sorrow, resentment, grief, regret and anger…felt by all Koreans” is for Australians. Our colonial desecration of Aboriginal people and culture is strongly felt when singing undoing the blind eye. Letting in ‘Han’ I unlearn human centric ways bringing in more compassion for this living earth. How I relate to other beings has changed. Music is now somatic, trance-inducing and like breathwork I have encountered in healing contexts.. When singing the corporeal, metaphysical, above and below, ancestral beings emerge. It is not a cognitive exercise disconnected from the deeply integrated organism we are. I feel enlivened, re-energized leaving. And feel as if it is the most meaningful thing I can do at this present time in my life.

Music as an educative force is a powerful tool for conveying messages. It can stir masses of people through their emotions and move them to action. This is why I write pop music: simple protest songs that are non-intrusive sharing messages. With the constant cascade of crises globally that we are all a part of, I feel an urgent responsibility to, as David Abram’s describes, ‘put face to place’, ‘story up the land’, and ‘revitalise oral culture’. In the domains in which I have a voice, I will levy my privilege to make a difference in shifting the culture. To join the many voices urging social-ecological responsibility. I will share my unlearning practice with audiences specifically holding space for the distress we find difficult to face when alone or in other contexts. Music has a great quality in which it can uplift people’s spirit, provide connection, bring people home whilst still holding their distress graciously. For this project I will sing with ecologies that have lost allies in humans, who are desperately crying out for their lives. Here I will sing, in a bid to just listen, and be there with our distress. The more-than-human voices will be recorded and brought into urban centres for my performances. Facilitating humane connection between locals and their ecologies in the art arena. In the hope to spur environmental action, but not just this. To ignite a spiritual connection with ecology, an experience of the sacred, that cannot be put into words.